Treasure and leveling comparisons: AD&D1, B/ED&D, and D&D3 - updated 11-17-08 (Q1)

[fanboy2000]

I doubt it, but here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/125997-gary-gygax-q-part-ix-108.html#post2766231
http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/125997-gary-gygax-q-part-ix-108.html#post2766491

Bullgrit

The guy who asked the original question beat me to it! That said, while I was searching I also found this tidbit: Quasqueton asks Gygax about adventure design at TSR.

 

[Doug McCrae]

3e is more Gygaxian than by the book 1e, due to the training rules, which Gary didn't use.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I doubt it, but here:

Why do you doubt it?

Or is this simply an attempt to be "slyly" insulting?


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

3e is more Gygaxian than by the book 1e, due to the training rules, which Gary didn't use.

Is the impression you got from Gary that he thought 3e more Gygaxian? AFAICT, he wasn't overly fond of it.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Looking at Gary's quotes in context, it seems clear , within his own campaign, that he expected the average player to take 52 4-hour sessions to get from level 1 to 10. IOW, 208 hours of game play.

Somewhere upthread, someone quoted what WotC expected in terms of character growth in a year's weekly sessions. Can anyone point me to that post?

If the goal is really to find out what WotC and TSR considered the expected norms to be, these are (IMHO) the important posts. If WotC concurs that a year's play in 3e should lead to level 10, I am convinced.

(Not within their expectations, mind you, but convinced that Q is correct as to what their expectations were.)

RC

 

[fanboy2000]

Somewhere upthread, someone quoted what WotC expected in terms of character growth in a year's weekly sessions. Can anyone point me to that post?

If the goal is really to find out what WotC and TSR considered the expected norms to be, these are (IMHO) the important posts. If WotC concurs that a year's play in 3e should lead to level 10, I am convinced.

Here is the closest I could find: Monte Cook comments on the final draft of the XP section of the 3e DMG.

Several important points:

1. Character are supposed to level up every 13 or 14 encounters.
2. Or, and here's the important part, about every 4 sessions or so.
3. However, he also states that the math hasn't changed from 2e at all.

Mathematically, you’ll notice similarities between the progression of a given CR’s worth in this system and the previous system’s Challenge Level reward progression. That’s because the amount of XP needed to gain a level did not change between these two systems, nor did our desired advancement rate (gaining a level about every four sessions, or every 13 to 14 encounters appropriate to your character). A 1st-level character in a group of four players is going to get 75 XP per level-1 encounter, just as in the previous system.

Clearly, neither Mr. Cook nor Wizards of the Coast anticipated that, nine years later, people would be debating the rate of advancement between 1e and 3e.

Bastards!

 

[billd91]

Here is the closest I could find: Monte Cook comments on the final draft of the XP section of the 3e DMG.

Several important points:

1. Character are supposed to level up every 13 or 14 encounters.
2. Or, and here's the important part, about every 4 sessions or so.
3. However, he also states that the math hasn't changed from 2e at all.

Well, no. He's saying that math hasn't changed from some previous system. But the way he describes it, it's clearly not either 1e nor 2e. There must have been something else they were experimenting with or had previously presented in some other source.
The dead give away is the statement that the amount of XP needed to advance hadn't changed. The XPs needed between 2e and 3e did change, substantially.

 

[fanboy2000]

The dead give away is the statement that the amount of XP needed to advance hadn't changed. The XPs needed between 2e and 3e did change, substantially.

Thanks, that was confusing the heck out of me. I'm completely unfamiliar with 2e's xp system, so I didn't see that. This is a link to some of the previous xp system's they were experimenting with. I didn't look at them because I was focused on what actually went into the game.

 

[Raven Crowking]

[*]Or, and here's the important part, about every 4 sessions or so.[/LIST]

I agree with you that this is the important part, and expectations can be examined in light of it.

52 divided by 4 = 13, indicating that WotC expected one to reach approximately 13th level over the course of 52 sessions (barring any statements located that dispute Monte Cook which are deserving of more weight than this....something I find unlikely unless they are later statements by Monte himself).

Gary expected one to reach approximately 10th level in the same period.

So we can see, based on this information, that the expected rate of advancement (by these parties) for 3e is greater than that for 1e, although not too greatly so. (3e characters have 1.3 the expected advancement of 1e characters.)

That is less disparity than I would have expected (I would have expected a 1.5 variance, or 15 levels in 3e to 10 levels in 1e). My mileage certainly varied in actual play experience with 1e, and I imagine that others have had their mileage vary with 3e as well.


RC



EDIT: BTW, this is at some variance with Q's work, I note, which demonstrates in the AD&D modules that the 1e character rate of advancement was slightly higher than that of the 3e rate of advancement.....IOW, opposite of what the linked statements show was expected. I do, therefore, contend that I was correct not to accept the conclusions as "proven" on that basis. YMMV.

RC

 

[Hussar]

Note RC, you are taking the 4 sessions thing as a literal statement. That's not what the quote says. The quote says "around" four sessions. True, it could be three, but, it could be five or six as well.

13 in a year vs 10 in a year is pretty much exactly the same AFAIC. At least close enough for government work.

And, funnily enough, fits my play experience almost perfectly. Who'da thunk?

You're not going to get exact parallels here. There's far too many variables to get exact numbers. For example, if a group actually did clean out all those modules, then flogged all but a few of the magic items, they'd be a couple of levels higher, quite possibly.

Strangely enough though, they could miss out on almost half the treasure that Q outlines and the difference is only 1 level.

As I said 13 and 10 are pretty close. Not a huge variance anyway. Splitting hairs is not going to prove anything.

I guess the most accurate conclusion would be: Leveling in 1e and 3e, assuming that you play pretty close by the rules, will result in very similar leveling over the first ten levels or so.